[Taxacom] Taxonomic carelessness - the case of Francis Walker

[George Beccaloni]

Whilst curating the Natural History Museum's cockroach collection I came
across the following extraordinary example of Francis Walker's (1809 -
1874) carelessness:- in a single publication (his 1868 "Catalogue of the
Specimens of Blattariae in the Collection of the British Museum") he
named a cockroach species three times (as Ischnoptera ruficeps,
Nauphoeta ruficeps and Nauphoeta signifrons), all of which are
considered to be synonyms of an earlier name (Oxyhaloa deusta (Thunberg,
1784)). Not only that but he placed Ischnoptera  and Nauphoeta in two
very different families (Blattidae and Panchloridae)! Considering that
all the specimens look identical (with minor differences between
ruficeps and signifrons); that he had both sexes of all except
signifrons (but he didn't manage to sex some of the specimens
correctly!); AND that they all came from the same country (South
Africa), it makes you wonder whether he relied more on luck than
judgement when naming species. I guess he independently coined the name
ruficeps for two of the taxa because of their reddish heads, failing to
remember that he had seen one of them before!

 

Does anyone else have any worse examples of taxonomic carelessness, or
is this a record?!
 
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Dr George Beccaloni,
Curator of Orthopteroidea (cockroaches [including termites], mantids,
earwigs, stick insects,
grasshoppers, crickets etc) & the A. R. Wallace insect collection,
Entomology Department,
The Natural History Museum [British Museum (Natural History)],
Cromwell Road,
South Kensington,
London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel. +44 (0)20 7942 5361
Fax. +44 (0)20 7942 5229
 
My Web CV:- 
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/staff-directory/entomology/cv-353
4.html
World catalogue of cockroaches:-
http://blattodea.speciesfile.org/HomePage.aspx
Blattodea Culture Group (cockroach study group):-
http://blattodea-culture-group.org/
The Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund:- http://wallacefund.info/
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